Simple, one size fits all kind of search. A single keywords input that can search through most content.
Simple search is available out of the box in the directory and category pages and looks like this.
Simple search is scoped listing title, summary, description, meta keywords and custom fields. You can modify some aspects of the functionality related to simple search.
Hiding Simple Search
You can hide the simple search throughout the site so visitors don't see the input in directory and category pages.
Configuration → Search → Simple Search → Show search box in list and directory pages
Changing the Query Type
By default, simple search finds results that contain all words typed in the search input, but only within a specific field.
For example, lets say you have the following text in a listing:
Summary
red roses
Description
yellow sunflowers
Searching for yellow roses with the All query type will not find this listing because the words are not within the same field. They are not used within the same context. However, searching for roses and red roses will find the listing.
If you prefer to have results found for any typed word, then you can change the query type to Any. While this make work under some scenarios, keep in mind that it will make it more difficult to narrow down results based on keywords, as any listing containinig at least one of the words will be shown in the results.
Configuration → Search → Simple Search → Default query type
Automatically Filtering by Category
There's a couple of ways to do this:
-
Configuration → Search → Simple Search → Use current page category id as filters for simple search
By enabling this setting, when a keyword search is performed in category pages, the category ID will be automatically included as a search filter.
-
Configuration → Search → General → Use current page Itemid for search results
Another approach is through menu IDs. By using the category URL as the anchor to display the results, the category ID is also autmatically included as a filter, passed through the menu ID without the need to explicitly show the category parameter.
Try them both and see which one you prefer.
Searching within Custom Fields
The ability to search within custom fields is built right into simple search. To fine-tune the quality of results, you can specifically include and exclude fields from search in the Fields Manager by toggling the search column for individual custom field.